


Approaching Thunder

by mithrel



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Blanket Permission, Established Relationship, First Time Bottoming, M/M, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-12
Updated: 2009-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-30 08:07:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sex during a thunderstorm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Approaching Thunder

Arthur idly turned the page of his book, not really reading, lulled into a half-doze by the pounding of rain on the roof. This was the first of the autumn rains, which would drive people indoors and turn the practice ground to mud. Despite the shutters being closed and the tapestries on the walls, the room was chilly.

Merlin slipped in and smiled at him, then frowned as he saw the state of the fire, almost out. Arthur hadn’t wanted to move to tend it.

Merlin knelt on the hearth, and with a muttered word the flames were crackling merrily again. Arthur thought wistfully that he wished he could have seen Merlin’s face as he cast the spell. Even after all this time together, the sight of Merlin’s eyes glowing gold made the bottom drop out of his stomach.

As Merlin stood up Arthur moved his arm to the back of the couch. “Come here.”

Merlin smiled again and settled down next to him, his head pillowed on Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur wrapped his arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer.

It had taken a long time to reach this level of easy intimacy. When they’d first got together Merlin was convinced that he didn’t deserve Arthur, or that Arthur didn’t really want him, or some such rubbish. Arthur kept having to reassure him, which was irritating, since he didn’t _do_ reassuring. He ended up just having sex with him until Merlin was convinced he was staying.

Merlin sighed and sank against him, mouthing sleepily against his neck.

“Do you even know how much I love you?” That was another hurdle he’d had to overcome. He’d been taught that the only acceptable emotions to express were anger and pride. Things like fear, love, compassion might be felt but not expressed. When Merlin had told him he loved him, Arthur had panicked, not because he didn’t feel the same way, but because he couldn’t _tell_ him.

“Yes, but I love hearing you say it.” Merlin licked up Arthur’s neck, and Arthur shivered and leaned down to kiss him.

Arthur hadn’t told Merlin that he knew about his magic until they’d been lovers for some time. He remembered the conversation.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a warlock?” he’d asked one evening when they were alone in his chambers.

Merlin had been flopped in a chair, his head lolling, but at those words his head shot up and he stared at Arthur in panic. “I’m not!”

It had been bad enough that Merlin hadn’t told him. It was worse to have him lie to his face.

“You are. Don’t lie to me!”

Merlin had sagged against the chair, as if he couldn’t bear to move at all. “All right, I am.”

Arthur had never heard Merlin sound like that before. Hollow, defeated, hopeless. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked again.

“I _couldn’t!_ ” Merlin had been desperate to explain. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t! Your father…”

“Dammit, Merlin, I’m not my father, you should know that by now! Didn’t I help you smuggle the druid boy out of Camelot?”

“Didn’t you arrest Gwen for sorcery? Didn’t you stand by and do nothing while innocent people were burned?” Merlin shot back.

Arthur winced. And, as usual when he was attacked, especially when he knew he was in the wrong, he got defensive. “What could I do? Father won’t listen to reason!”

“You should have done _something!_ At the very least you shouldn’t have parroted your father’s ideas!”

“I don’t!”

“When we’d fought the bandits off in Ealdor you told me, remember? ‘You know how dangerous magic is.’”

“Well you _should_ know that, you’ve seen all the people trying to kill me! And I also told you you shouldn’t have kept the fact that your friend was a sorcerer from me!”

“That’s supposed to make me confess?”

Arthur said nothing.

“So why confront me now?” Merlin asked, his knuckles still white around the arms of the chair.

“Because you obviously don’t trust me enough to tell me on your own.” He stopped and then continued quietly, “You should.”

“Arthur…”

He’d turned away, and moved to leave the room.

“Are you going to tell your father?” Merlin asked softly, his voice leaden.

Arthur stopped dead. “I’d think you’d know me better than that by now, Merlin.”

He heard Merlin’s sigh of relief as he left.

For several weeks after that, Merlin had avoided him, except when he was working. He’d been perfectly respectful, never talked back to Arthur, and performed his duties admirably. It was as if he felt he was on probation.

Arthur took to purposely messing up his room and giving Merlin the most disgusting and demeaning jobs he could in the hopes of getting a rise out of him.

It didn’t work. Merlin would sigh when he saw the state of Arthur’s chambers, and begin picking them up without comment. Whatever Arthur ordered him to do, he merely replied, “As you wish, sire,” and did it.

Arthur had missed him. He’d missed his inane chatter, his incompetence, he’d even missed his insults. He’d certainly missed having him in his bed at night.

After three weeks he’d confronted him. “I told you I wasn’t going to tell my father.”

“I’m aware of that, sire.”

“Dammit Merlin, _stop_ it! You never call me ‘sire’ unless you’re being sarcastic, you haven’t called me a prat in three weeks and you hardly talk at all!”

Merlin flinched.

Arthur sighed and moved over and put a hand on his shoulder. Merlin wrenched away. “Don’t touch me!”

“Why not?” Arthur asked, letting the hurt show plain in his voice and in his eyes. Then he locked eyes with Merlin (no easy task, since Merlin seemed determined not to look at him) and said simply, “I’ve missed you.”

Merlin stared at him in disbelief. “You have?”

“Of course I have, you idiot!”

“But I’m a warlock!” Merlin said. “I–”

“I knew you were a warlock long before we became lovers! I don’t care! I love you anyway!”

Merlin gaped at him. “Y-you what?”

“I love you,” Arthur repeated. He hadn’t said it before, but it was true, and Merlin needed to know it.

Merlin came over to him and took his hands. He studied Arthur’s face, and Arthur concentrated on keeping his barriers down. Slowly the wariness in Merlin’s eyes faded, replaced by a quiet joy, and he kissed him.

A hand shaking his shoulder recalled him to his surroundings.

“Sorry,” he said, smiling at Merlin. “I was lost in thought.”

“Well, you would be lost in such unfamiliar territory,” Merlin teased.

Arthur punched him in the side, lightly.

“Ow!” Merlin whined.

“You’re such a girl, Merlin.”

“You never seem to mind,” Merlin said, leering at him.

Arthur rolled his eyes. It had taken them awhile to work up to actual fucking, and once they did, Arthur was always on top. Merlin didn’t seem to mind too much.

But tonight, he wanted something different. He didn’t know if it was the rain, or his thoughts, or the way the firelight made Merlin’s cheekbones look even more prominent than they actually were, but something made him decide to do things differently. They would never be truly equals; Arthur was the prince, after all, and nothing would change that. The nearest things he had to social equals were Uther and Morgana. But he could even the footing a little.

He kissed Merlin again, lingeringly, then moved to mouth at his neck. Merlin murmured appreciatively and there was a growl of thunder, muted in the distance, the first of the night.

Merlin moved to unlace his tunic and Arthur let him, raising his arms so Merlin could pull it off over his head. Merlin’s hands skated lightly over his chest and Arthur sighed.

“You’re beautiful like this,” Merlin murmured. Arthur didn’t answer. He never knew what to say when Merlin said things like that.

He let Merlin take the lead, sucking at his neck as the thunder grew closer, moving to unlace his breeches and slip his hand inside.

“Bed,” Arthur gasped, and Merlin looked at him and grinned. Arthur stumbled a little on the way, half-falling onto the bed and kicking his boots off impatiently.

Merlin laughed, and Arthur finally reached out for him, pulling his tunic off, dragging his fingers along Merlin’s sides as he did so. The low susurration of rain on the roof was punctuated by occasional claps of thunder, and lightning which threw his chambers into sharp relief, the storm right overhead now.

Merlin pulled Arthur’s breeches off, reaching for him again, but Arthur grabbed his hand and he stilled. “No.”

Merlin looked at him quizzically.

“Not tonight.”

“You want to fuck me?” Merlin asked, and at the words Arthur was tempted, but…

“No.”

Merlin’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Then what…”

Arthur pulled Merlin, still half-dressed, to lie on top of him. “I want _you_ to fuck _me._ ”

Merlin’s breath caught, and he looked at him closely, trying to read his face in the dim light and the flashes of lightning. “You sure?”

Arthur nodded. “Yes.”

Merlin unlaced his breeches and dropped them to the floor, then reached for the pot of salve on the bedside table. He coated his fingers with it, and gently stroked over Arthur’s entrance.

Arthur hissed at the sensation, and Merlin drew away, but Arthur growled, “ _Merlin!_ ” and he returned. He circled the entrance to Arthur’s body for some time, as Arthur squirmed against him, before finally pushing in up to the first knuckle.

Arthur hissed again, and tried simultaneously to draw away from the intrusion and move closer to it.

“Alright?” Merlin asked.

Arthur nodded.

Merlin held still for so long that Arthur decided he might go mad. He shifted against him, and Merlin smiled and pushed the rest of the way in.

Arthur gritted his teeth to keep from crying out as Merlin withdrew his finger and pushed in again. Merlin had locked eyes with him, and wore an expression of fierce concentration. “Relax, I’ve got you.” When Arthur stopped fighting the sensations and pushed back against his hand, Merlin smiled.

Merlin added another finger and Arthur threw his head back and moaned. He closed his eyes, listening to the rain and feeling Merlin stretching him open.

As Merlin scissored his fingers, he hit something inside Arthur and Arthur’s eyes shot open as sparks shot through his veins. He _keened_ , and would have been humiliated, but Merlin was smiling, and he hit that spot again and Arthur stopped thinking.

He lay there for he didn’t know how long, panting, as Merlin added a third and then a fourth finger. All he could do was fuck mindlessly against Merlin’s fingers, and finally he whimpered, “Merlin, _please!_ ”

The fingers pulled out of him, and he moaned at the loss, but a moment later Merlin’s cock was nudging inside him, and he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

As Merlin entered him, there was a crash of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning, and Arthur saw his face: eyes tightly closed, sweat beaded on his forehead, hair matted.

He eased into Arthur slowly, and Arthur whimpered again at the stretch, but when Merlin was finally inside him Arthur put his arms around him and kissed him.

Arthur rocked his hips slightly and Merlin gasped against his mouth, as another flash of lightning lit the room. He began to move in him, gasping out, “Gods, Arthur, you’re so…just…oh _fuck!_ ”

The lightning flashes came on after another now, accompanied by thunder, almost in time with Merlin’s thrusts. Then he reached between them and took hold of Arthur’s cock, and Arthur bucked against him.

There was a deafening crash of thunder, and a flash of lightning so bright spots danced in front of Arthur’s eyes, as Merlin came and Arthur came along with him.

Merlin slumped against him, and as he did so Arthur realised that there was no more thunder, and the rain, rather than slackening off to a drizzle and stopping, had just as abruptly ended.

He fought off the sated lassitude as Merlin pulled out of him, feeling a twinge as he did so.

Merlin took him in his arms and kissed him. “Alright?”

Arthur smiled. “Better than alright. But the rain…”

Merlin looked faintly guilty. “What about it?”

“It just _stopped_. And before it seemed like the thunder was in synch with you.”

Merlin shifted, “Well, you know, a thunderstorm happens when there’s a lot of energy in the air that has to be released. It just sort of builds up until it…crests.”

Arthur’s brow furrowed. “Wait, are you saying the storm was responding to you?”

“It…might have been,” Merlin muttered, not looking at him.

“Has this ever happened before?”

“Once. In Ealdor,” Merlin confessed.

“Well we’ll just have to hope no one notices…no, never mind, that wasn’t natural, people are bound to notice. We’ll have to hope no one connects it to you. Although why anyone should connect freak weather patterns to a warlock having sex is beyond me.”

Merlin laughed weakly. “So from now on no sex during thunderstorms.”

Arthur laughed too, and kissed him.


End file.
